A bookworm's thoughts on life, love, and the never-ending pursuit of a great story

Book Review: Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

Book Description: Everyone knows a couple like Jack and Grace. He has looks and wealth, she has charm and elegance. You might not want to like them, but you do.

You’d like to get to know Grace better. But it’s difficult, because you realize Jack and Grace are never apart.

Some might call this true love. Others might ask why Grace never answers the phone. Or how she can never meet for coffee, even though she doesn’t work. How she can cook such elaborate meals but remain so slim. And why there are bars on one of the bedroom windows.

My Review:

At first glance, Grace and Jack have the perfect marriage. They’re inseparable, finish each other’s sentences, and host beautifully complex dinner parties in their gorgeous, secluded home. But all is certainly not what it seems.

Behind Closed Doors is a masterfully unsettling, heart-pounding thriller that takes off quickly and never lets up. Told from Grace’s point of view, it alternates seamlessly between the backstory of the early days in their relationship (the “past”) and a year later, when the horrors of her situation have really set in (the “present”). Grace must attempt to keep her wits about her in this intense, unexpected predicament she’s found herself, because it’s not just her life at stake. Her younger sister Millie has Down syndrome, and will be moving in with them permanently on her 18th birthday, just a few short months away.

While this book is drawing a lot of understandable comparisons to Gone Girl, I respectfully beg to differ (it feels like that has become a much overused comparison, to the point of it being an easy cop out for any strong psychological thriller). Where Gone Girl centers more on deception and a search for answers, Behind Closed Doors takes a different approach by hitting you right in the face with the horrifying truth and then plowing ahead through the riveting nightmare that Paris so effortlessly presents. Both effective styles, but not necessarily comparable in my opinion. Behind Closed Doors really stands in a class all it’s own and as disturbed as I was, I couldn’t put it down. A stunning debut from an author that I will surely be watching out for in the years to come.

It’s hard to say much more without spoiling the entire plot, so I’ll leave you with this. If you’re a fan of intensely chilling, more-than-slightly disturbing, fast-paced thrillers with a villain who is almost certainly evil incarnate, then this is a can’t miss. And at the very least, it’s a crazy effective cautionary tale of how you may want to really get to know that perfect guy you met in the park before you accept his marriage proposal; you probably don’t know him as well as you think.

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